Comparison between devised play and Hot Money Essay

For our second scripted play we had to perform the farcical comedy ‘Hot Money.’ This comedy is about two unintelligent bank robbers who get lost and end up finding themselves in a rundown manor. The Lord and Butler of the manor arrive home to find a suitcase of money and they both scheme to take it. The play ends with the blowing up of the house and money. My contribution to the performance was as the Butler, ‘Phelps.’ I contributed to the main farcical comedy of the piece mainly through my actions. I stay in role throughout the piece even when the audience found parts amusing. The main similarity between ‘Zoolander’ and ‘Hot Money’ is that they are both comedies and for the purpose of entertaining people. However ‘Hot Money’ being a farce made the play more extravagant and unlikely situations to happen. It had broad physical humour, and deliberate absurdity and nonsense. An example of this is when the house is blown up with Phelps inside; although the house has blown up I still remain unharmed. ‘Zoolander’ also contained elements of a farce as it is a parody it imitates another work in order to ridicule, ironically comment on, or poke some affectionate fun at the work itself. For example when Derek ‘Zoolander’ imitates the stereotypical male model of the 21st century. ‘Hot Money’ was set in the 1920’s however we performed the play as a whole with the characters more stereotypical of people’s views rather than how the characters would have been in the 1920’s. This made our play was appropriate for any time period between the 1920’s and now. However ‘Zoolander’ is a modern film set in the 21st century and a parody of male fashion models and the people who work within that industry. There are also similarities in the themes of the plays. For a start both plays contain characters that are essentially making fun of themselves unintentionally. However, one of the differences is that the society of ‘Hot Money’ ranges from the lower class stereotypical bank robbers to the very upper class Lord of the Manor, with these vastly different worlds of rich and poor both depicted in the play it meant that the audience could be amused by people who are higher up in society than them and people who were also lower down. In contrast, the society of ‘Zoolander’ is, at its richest level. It contains rich male models, prime ministers and the fashion designer Mugatu. However the richness and upper-class of these characters contrast with their own stupidity and self humiliation. As ‘Hot Money’ is set in the outskirts of London all the characters within this play are Londoners. The lower class had the cockney accent of 1920’s and the upper class characters had an aristocratic accent. In contrast, the society of ‘Zoolander’ is of the typical Americans as it is set in New York, America. ‘Zoolander’ being a film has had many retakes and editing, this makes the film seem more polished and perfected than our play, ‘Hot Money.’ These retakes and editing make the film seem more effective and amusing to watch to an audience. However as we were not able to retake or edit any of our play as it was performed live, this may have affected how effective it was to an audience but on the other hand as it was performed live it may have made the play seem more effective as people prefer to watch things live than on a television screen. There are many differences and similarities in the characters represented in ‘Hot Money’ and ‘Zoolander.’ Both contain characters which are comical to an audience, unintelligent and make fun of themselves unintentionally. The stupidity of many characters including Derek ‘Zoolander’ in ‘Zoolander’ and Bert in ‘Hot Money’ are represented by their slow speech and length of time to react to other people and to react to happenings around them. However ‘Zoolander’ does surprisingly contain sharp witted characters such as Mugatu characterised by there quick come backs and intelligence. ‘Zoolander’ is very affective to an audience although as it is very over the top not all audiences may find it amusing, this is also true for ‘Hot Money.’ In conclusion to this essay, I would like to say that I have learnt a lot about the difference between the two different comedies and the difference between a film and a play. At first there seemed to be a big difference between a farcical comedy and a parody but now I can there are many similarities as well.